Damakant Jayshi
A proposal to hire a consultant to strategize development on the north riverfront in Wausau failed at the committee level this week, amid concerns over cost and the length of time to clean up environmental contamination in the area.
The proposal from the city’s planning staff to issue a request for proposals at a maximum of $100,000 is still in play, as the Wausau City Council will have the final say in the matter. The proposal failed after a tie vote by members of the Economic Development Committee.
Alders Chad Henke and Carol Lukens voted in favor of issuing the RFP, which aims to develop a strategy for multiple parcels on the north riverfront. But Alders Terry Kilian and Victoria Tierney voted against the measure, while Alder Gary Gisselman was excused for the portion of the meeting in which the vote was taken.
The City of Wausau North Riverfront Redevelopment Plan – Request for Proposal 2024 would seek a qualified firm to outline redevelopment opportunities in an area flanked by Bridge Street in the south and 6th St. to the east, with the Wisconsin river as boundary to the west. That includes the former Wausau Chemical, Great Lakes Cheese and County Materials storage properties.
The plan says it would transition “Wausau’s riverfront from legacy industrial to a vibrant place to live, work, and play.”
Assistant City Planner Andrew Lynch said redevelopment would likely include both commercial and residential corridors with connectivity to the riverfront and “some really excellent public infrastructure that anyone coming down the riverfront can use.”
Much of the discussion centered on property with documented contamination.
The former location for Wausau Chemical, located on the east bank of the Wisconsin River, is among the three entities that contributed to contamination of groundwater in the area, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has placed the Superfund site, Wausau Groundwater Contamination, under its National Priorities List.
The Superfund law created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries. The tax went into a trust fund to help pay for cleaning up abandoned or uncontrolled waste sites, according to the EPA.
When Kilian asked about the status of the Wausau Chemical parcel, Economic Development Manager Randy Fifrick said funds were allocated in the 2024 budget to start the cleanup process. The city is in the process of hiring a consultant to work with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to go through that process.
“It’s a long process, looking probably eight to 10 years,” Fifrick said.
That prompted Kilian, recently elected to represent Dist. 3, to question the rational of putting that parcel into the redevelopment plan at this time.
“So, you’re hiring a consultant to talk about or propose ideas about what to put on that Superfund site and that’s going to take eight to 10 years,” she said. “So why are we doing that now?”
Assistant Planner Lynch said there were two other parcels, the Great Lakes Cheese site and the County Materials site, that could be available for development and said the plan could help guide the city as to what can or cannot go in its redevelopment strategy.
Fifrick agreed, saying the targeted area is big and development takes time.
Alder Tierney also questioned the timing, asking why the city should be spending money now for something that may not happen. After eight years, the information would be old, she said.
“And then what I see happening is you hire another consultant and spend more money eight years from now saying,’ what we decided eight years ago, just isn’t feasible at this point anymore’,” Tierney said.
She suggested that the city should instead be looking at preparing a contract or a developer for the land already targeted for development. “You are talking about this very long period of time before we can develop things and we have something that we want to do relatively soon.”
But City Planner Brad Lenz said the city is looking for a long-term plan, adding they need to do the planning before they can get the ball rolling in terms of development.
That site, he said, is “sort of a blank slate.” He said cleanup at Wausau Chemical shouldn’t stop the city from starting to plan for the future.
“We are not just looking at the three sites. Those are the focus, but we’re really looking at the whole area, we’re looking at the Athletic Park neighborhood, even the residential area,” Lenz said. “The point is to try to tie these things together at a high level.”
The planners got a boost from Alder Tom Neal, who is not a member of the committee. The Dist. 4 alder said he would prefer to have some intelligence about the potential for development.
“The gaining of this knowledge is strategic, not just for that space, but for the whole neighborhood,” he said, joining the conversation. “And the sooner we can kind of get those options lined up, the more developers will have to look at, so I think it’s important to get that kind of information, not just put it off.”
Since the tie vote meant the proposal failed, according to City Attorney Anne Jacobson, the committee could still forward it to the City Council as a failed vote which it did.
